1/14/2018

"Opera House": Edifice Complex

The Metropolitan "Opera House" in progress(photo: Fathom Events)

Opera
House, a two-hour historical
treatment of the home for the past fifty years for the Metropolitan
Opera in New York by award-winning documentary filmmaker Susan
Froemke, is not just about the building but also the people involved
in its creation. As you may see from the photo of the mortar and
metal that form the foreboding framework at the area to become known
as Lincoln Center, it was quite an undertaking. Utilizing archival
footage and current interviews, as well as still photos from the 50's
and 60's, the film takes an objective view of the building and its
barriers, along the way portraying the roles of opera impressario
assoluto Rudolph Bing,
city planner Robert Moses and architect Wallace Harrison.

Where
once the Sharks and Jets pirouetted to the music of Leonard Bernstein
and the lyrics of Steven Sondheim in the film version of West
Side Story, would emerge a huge
new complex. Moving from its downtown building erected in 1883, the
construction of the Lincoln Center complex had its challenges, which
Froemke wisely highlights with personal stories of the people
involved, from high profile names such as Leontyne Price (who opened
the new house for the Met in 1966 with Franco Zefferelli's production
of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra), tothe head of the supernumeraries
and other tech workers. It makes for a fascinating story of its own,
with even some blemishes intact (though the eminent domain issues
displacing poor tenement residents is pretty much glossed over). All
in all, it's a thoroughly researched and coordinated tale of a
building that we all thought we knew so well.

There
will be an encore HD presentation next Weds. January 17th
at a theater near you.